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I’m so fucking lonely without Chuck. Not because I don’t know how to be alone, duh…but because I loved being with him and around him and breathing in his scent and looking into his eyes and because I was in love with him. Duh. What does me being lonely without him have to do with not knowing how to be alone? If you love someone, I’d think you like to be with them, but maybe that’s just me.
My body aches for him.
I wish I cared that I don’t care about the future, but I don’t care that I don’t care.
I wonder what it would be like to kiss another man. Will it freak me out or will it intrigue me?
Chuck hoped that I’d find another man to love someday.
I don’t care that Chuck would want me to be happy. Let him be the one to live this life without me, then we’ll talk.
I hate drama of any sort. People who get upset over bullshit irritate the shit out of me. And naming something as bullshit is a personal judgement, yes.
Do I hate being on the road or do I love being on the road? I don’t know. All that I do know is that it’s the only life I have, and the only life I can imagine.
I dream of a pristine hotel room with clean, soft sheets and a nearby, equally pristine bathroom with a huge soaking tub even though I don’t like taking baths. Lovely scented lotions line the rim of the tub.
I feel so hardened. Not bitter, just hardened from surviving. From doing it on my own.
I can’t say that I’ve learned anything of value with Chuck’s death. I was already deeply compassionate and loving and caring. What exactly am I supposed to have learned from Chuck’s death? How strong I am? I already knew I was strong before he died. So did he.
This is bullshit.
I love my kids deeply. Also my grandkids. And none of those relationships replace what I had with Chuck. Why does that surprise anyone?
Chuck was the handsomest man I ever met. Still the handsomest man I’ve ever seen. It seems to me that there are an awful lot of men who don’t take care of themselves physically. For god’s sake, stop wearing what I consider pedal pushers; those baggy shorts that hit right below the knees. Especially denim ones. You look stupid. Wear a clean t-shirt. Know how to dress up if the occasion calls for it.
Are there any real men left in our world? Masculine men? I don’t think there are.
I miss Chuck’s sexiness. He was an excellent lover. He could turn me on with a glance.
I feel aimless in life. Mostly it’s just something to get through each day, til I can go to sleep again.
I used to hate night times. Now I appreciate them so that I can be completely alone and not have to put forth energy into interacting with others.
I cry frequently, when I’m alone.
I look so strong on the outside. Looks are deceiving.
I long to dance with Chuck again, moving against him, his arms around me.
I look at women who have their husbands around, who seem to hate having their husbands around, who bitch and complain at them and micromanage them and get pissy especially over shit that doesn’t matter, and I wonder what the fuck is wrong with this world, that my husband is dead and theirs is alive.
I also look at women who look at me, as a widow, those who judge my grief and wonder why I’m not over it, and think…yeah, just wait and see what it’s like for you, sister. Just wait. And I hope to god you have compassionate people around you when it happens. Because it’s pure, fucking, unadulterated, fucking hell that I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
I get that death is a part of life. When someone says that to me, I just want to respond to them What the fuck does that have to do with anything?
Sunsets make me cry. So does looking at a full moon. The beauty of both reminds me of watching them with Chuck. No, the memories don’t make me feel better. They make me miss him more, okay? What the fuck makes you think that remembering the good times makes me feel better?
I do remember the good times. That’s why I’m sad, for god fucking sake. There are no more good times to be had with the one I had them with, and…that makes me so sad that I can’t stand it.
How do I keep getting up each day? And why do I keep getting up each day? I hate that about me.
Sometimes, like a comet flashing across the sky, images of Chuck on his deathbed come to me and freak me out again. When was the last time he was conscious and looked at me, I wonder? Did he glance at me for a last time and I wasn’t aware of it? Did I miss his last glance?
Does he know that all I do is think about him, even as I’m doing all the goddamn shit I’m supposed to be doing to re-engage with life?
My heart hurts for our kids. Their dad should still be in their lives.
My heart hurts for me, too.
Chuck still had so much living to do.
I really don’t want to be here but I don’t say that aloud very often because people will think I’m unstable or ungrateful for life or some stupid shit like that.
But I really don’t want to be here. Life without Chuck is lacking in color and energy.
I loved taking care of him. It was a turn-on, actually. And it turned him on to see me ironing his clothes, of all things. He also loved it when I wore his shirts. I wear his denim shirt to bed now, or when I’m alone in my trailer, even though he isn’t here to turn on anymore. I also put his favorite Key West t-shirt under my cheek when I sleep. I curl my fingers around his flag that rests next to me on my pillow.
I cry a lot when I’m alone. I already said that earlier, but believe it or not, I don’t let myself think about my emotions very often, or admit to them. So, I’m saying it again. I cry a lot when I’m alone.
As a liberated woman, I don’t think I’m supposed to admit that my life revolved around my husband, around what I could do to show my love for him, show my Love to him, but it did and I loved loving him. Chuck made it easy, because he did the same for me.
Life without Chuck is unbearable but you’d never know that by looking at all that I’ve done, all that I’m doing, in the years since his death.
It freaks me out that I’m headed towards year 5. I close that particular gate in my mind whenever the thought intrudes.
Chuck is only dead one day at a time for me. Otherwise I can’t do this.
I’m in love with a dead man.

Don’t do it. Don’t be a widow. There is no lonelier feeling in the world than being alone in the world without your person. It blitzes your world into pieces. Emotionally. Physically. Financially. Logistically. Practically. Holistically.

I realize you don’t actually have a choice about widowhood; if you’re one of a couple, one of you will live this. But I’m telling you; it will suck the very life from your bones, it will shred your heart…unless a ridged metal glove with spikes on it rips it from your chest first, and then slams it to the ground and hacks at it with a rusty axe blade, before putting it back in your chest along with a meat slicer that…oh, yay…works REALLY well, with really sharp blades, and continually slices away inside of you. And this is after counseling and therapy and yoga and meditation and every other thing you can think of.

And you’ll be alone in the world. Even though you will have people (hopefully). But people have their own lives, which is right and good and proper and as it should be. What that means for you, however, is that your heart and chest will fill with words with nobody to hear them (unless you talk to yourself, but it isn’t the same, is it?). And you’ll go to bed alone every night, possibly in a bed but oftentimes on a couch even if you have a bed because the back of the couch at your back somehow feels more secure. You might wear a shirt of his, even though it no longer bears his scent. You might rest your head upon his pillow, and try to feel a connection to him by doing that. You don’t really, but you pretend that you do.

You’ll sleep restlessly through the night, waking and sleeping on a repeat cycle, and then wake up alone in the morning to face a day that might be very busy, or it might be filled with shit to keep busy..it really doesn’t make a difference; you still breathe his absence no matter what you do.

People might think, but not say so because they’ve gotten smart enough not to, but you kind of feel the unspoken words, that you’re a bit unbalanced because they just don’t get what this shit does to a life. And they might think that you’re just feeling mighty sorry for yourself because you actually ‘fess up to the reality of what widowhood really is and you refuse to lie about it, but hey, people will think whatever they think. But you aren’t crazy. Your life was incinerated, is all, and you just can’t seem to get your shit together, no matter what you fucking do, no matter how much you fucking try. Not because you’re incompetent. Not because of anything, really. And you don’t feel sorry for yourself; you just feel shell-shocked as you look at the world around you and realize that you recognize nothing in it. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, people WILL get it. They might even ask you about your world and what it feels like in it.

And you might wish that people who have only known you as a widow, when you’re not near the person you were… might have known you when you laughed freely and felt passionate about life, and words tripped from you and there was a lightness of being about you and you were clever and had a great sense of humor and oh, boy, did you smile a LOT every day, and remember how you loved to dance? ..but they never will, so the only woman they know seems, in their estimation, just a bit off her rocker and, hey, is it safe for her to be around kids? and you just have to let that go because that woman you were is as dead as he is. And I guess maybe you DO seem crazy and unreliable even though you are more reliable than ever because of, you know, all the shit…but, you know…whatever.

So, all of which is to say….don’t be a widow. I don’t recommend it at all.

Living in the after
My heart in the before
My passion in the before…
Most of me, really, in the before
I don’t know how to be
In this after
I don’t know how to love life
In this after
All of me resides in the before
Because nothing seems to matter
In this after
Memories of Love
Of being held
Lightness of being
Instead of this heaviness
In this after
This low-grade buzz in my
Heart body mind soul
A buzz that aches with remembering
The before
In this after
How does one be
What one was before
In this after?
There is a great and yawning chasm
Between the before and the after
That echoes the great and yawning emptiness
Of my being
In this after
And it is in that emptiness
that who I was who I am who I might be could be don’t want to be but must be
in that emptiness of space and unknowing and missing-ness and uncertainty and dislocation and disorientation and remembering and hurting and wondering and standing still while moving…
There…right there….is where I reside
In this after
So very unlike the before~